Bubble Wrap for the Butt

This past Saturday my mom and cousin, Jeff, unwrapped their birthday gifts in front of all the family, some 20 or so of us, in the very large living room of my cousin's house. He sat at one end with my mom at the other like two pillars of the room. Our heads rocked from left to right as we watched them unwrap and joke. Stand up comics, if you will.

One very large package had sheets of very large bubble wrap. Now my son, always the ham, is on fire. Partly because he hadn't had a nap, or a break all day and partly because he had eaten cake and lemonade for 8 hours straight. He had attended my sister's baby shower earlier that day. I arranged for my dad, aka PaPa, to watch him during the shower. But since Papa was working in the field just beyond the house, my son could see the party and preferred to sit inside a cool house and eat cake versus helping Papa with fixing the horse feeder in the sun. And, since I was running around doing stuff, the kid helped himself to numerous glasses of the yellow stuff and numerous mini cupcakes loaded with Red Dye #40 (us grownups had a more dignified dessert of course).

Back to the birthday party. My son was trying to help Jeff unwrap his gifts. Jeff wrapped him in the big bubblewrap. He explained to the little tot that if ever he was about to receive a spanking, he could just put on the bubble wrap. Everyone laughed. So, my son took that to mean, he needed to ham it up at which point he began to work the room. He stood in front of each person and stuck out his bubble wrapped butt for each to give it a swat. Everytime, he laughed with such delight.

It made me think of characters in books like Judy Bloom and the Pain, Junie B. Jones and Ramona. It sounded like something any of those kids might do. Bubble wrap their butts to avoid punishment. Of course this depends on your view of spanking. I'm not a fan of it although that doesn't mean I haven't tried it when all else is lost. But, bubble wrap could be used for so many things. Rolling down a hill, rolling your younger sibling down a hill. Rolling the cat down a hill, sleigh riding bubble style. The ideas are endless.

I'm saving that one for a future character!